Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Yes, thanks a lot Brink

Shawn,

I recently had an encounter with the "disk signature" conflict when I was preparing my Laptop PC for a routine clone process.

What happened, was I connected up my Target HDD via a SATA/USB Enclosure to delete the partitions before cloning. When I connected the Target HDD (which was a near-mirror copy since it had been cloned a few weeks earlier), I saw the "disk signature conflict" message in the Disk Management Snap-in console on the left-hand side.

It wasn't unexpected but I rarely see that message appear when attaching my Target HDD's prior to cloning.

When I encountered that "signature conflict" issue, I booted up in "Gparted" and deleted the partitions that way, thinking that I couldn't use the "clean" command without bringing the HDD online first.


My question about the "clean" command is,

- Is it necessary to bring the HDD online before using the Clean command?

Or can I just use the "select disk x" to bring it to focus, then use the "clean" command without bringing the HDD online?

Shawn,

Thanks for the info. It's what I guessed would happen. No problem, since that conflict appears (for me) to be rare, I can always use Gparted to access the disk outside of Windows.

Hello all.

I own a hdd which was before in laptop that is not functioning, but hdd was intact and working good (500gb hitachi sata II), so i am planning to use it as external hdd, for both pc and ps3. It was partitioned in a way that had primary partition of 450gb and recovery partition of 15gb, and also a small system reserved so i used clean all, because i googled that is the easiest way to merge and in same time format the two partitions. The clean all command is still working (3.5 hours for now), but in the disk managment, hdd im doing clean on, it already says unallocated, also it is offline now, and whenever im entering disk managment it asks me shall i do initialization? I should guess it's better to wait with it till it's over.

My questions are now, if i cancel the procedure now, would there be any damage, and what steps i should do after, use only clean, or start making partition and format?

When i start making partitions, i suppose first is initialization, do i go for MBR, or GPT (this hdd will most likely be storage one)? After that when allocating partitions on it, i would like to make one partition NTFS, and one FAT32, both same in size. From the guides i've seen i must type what size of partition i wan't so im interested what number i must type in the correct box, 250gb or it must be in some different unit size? And after the clean all procedure, if i wait till it's really over, will i have on command full 500gb, or will it be little smaller? For now, unallocated size says 465,76gb.

Thanks for any help

Hey and thanks.

I will probably do the cancel then. If i've understood good, i can do it with CTRL and c.

Also when i will start with making the partitions, should i set it to be basic, or dynamic?

For now like i have mentioned before, it says i have 465,76 gb available, not 500. Is the 35 gb reserved for something else? If it stays that after just the clean, i will just do 50-50 then.

Just for the convinience, should i do firts partition with NTFS, and then the second FAT32? Or is it just the same?

And i suppose i can even skip the shrinking since all my hdd will be unalllacoted so i can just start partitioning.

Thanks